This a great make ahead pasta sauce, sandwich spread, appetizer dip or a flavorful garnish on any veggie based soup. I made up this recipe to help me deal with the ‘abundance’ of spinach I am often left with via my weekly CSA box in the spring and summer. This also freezes beautifully in ice cube trays, and can be stored in Ziploc baggies or hard sided containers for long term storage. It will last in the fridge for about 3/4 days.

Ingredients:

4-6 cups or 4-6 heaping handfuls of organic spinach

4-6 cloves of organic garlic, peeled

about 2oz of fresh organic basil or 2 tsp dried basil (optional)

1/4-1/2 C raw walnuts ( depends on how thick and creamy you want it, add more nuts for a thicker texture)

1 whole lemon juiced ( about 1/4 c fresh lemon juice)

1/4-1/2 C Organic Extra Virgin Olive oil, plus more to store it.

1/4-1/2 C grated hard cheese ( Parmesan, Romano, Grana Padano)

Method

Add spinach, garlic and basil to the bowl of your food processor and pulse until it resembles a course mealy texture.

Using a 1/4 cup measure dump the raw walnuts and lemon juice into the feeding chute of your food processor and pulse to combine with spinach garlic mixture. Add the last 1/4 cup of walnuts to processor if desired.

Slowly stream in extra virgin olive oil into the chute of the food proccor 1/4 cup at a time, pulsing to combine with spinach garlic mixture. Add remaining extra virgin olive oil if desired and grated hard cheese. Pulse just enough to combine mixture. *

When storing pesto in a container, pour a little extra virgin olive oil over the top to seal in the moisture so the pesto does not dry out.